Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars (18 May 1803-20 November 1815) was a series of military conflicts between the First French Empire and its allies, led by Emperor Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European powers formed into various coalitions, financed and usually led by the United Kingdom. The wars consisted of the War of the Third Coalition of 1805-1806, the War of the Fourth Coalition from 1806-1807, the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809, the War of the Sixth Coalition of 1813-1814, and the Seventh Coalition/"Hundred Days" of 1815. The end results were the downfall of Napoleon and his empire and the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the political map of Europe.

Napoleon's Imperial Triumphs in Europe
In August 1805, Austria joined Russia and the lesser powers of Sweden and Naples in an anti-French coalition financed by Britain. Emperor Napoleon thus abandoned his plans for a British invasion, instead marching his Grande Armee from Boulogne across Germany to strike at Austria. His aim was to defeat the Austrians before they could combine with the Russian army under General Mikhail Kutuzov, which was advancing west to join its ally. Napoleon's Grande Armee numbered almost 200,000 troops, and was organized into seven all-arms corps, each capable of independent maneuver under the orders of one of the emperor's marshals. The rapid movement this vast army achieved was unique, a result of forced marches, self-sufficiency without the encumbrance of a supply train, and skillful organization by the general staff. The Austrian general Karl Mack von Leiberich, whl had crossed Bavaria to Ulm, was encircled by the French sweeping around to the east and surrendered a 25,000-strong force without a major battle. In November Napoleon occupied Vienna, 11 weeks after leaving Boulogne.

The unstoppable army
But as the emperor pursued the enemy eastward, the Grande Armee's position became increasingly precarious. Living off the land was hard on the troops and their horses in winter. The Austrian and Russian armies had combined and more Austrian forces were arriving. Napoleon gambled on bringing his enemies to battle quickly and deciding the war with a single crushing victory. On 2 December at Austerlitz this was achieved, despite Emperor Francis of Austria and Czar Alexander I of Russia combining their armies. Their generals taking the offensive, Napoleon defeated them in a desperately contested battle, holding their initial attack and then delivering counterblows. After this loss the Austrians sued for peace, while the Russians withdrew into Poland.

Throughout this campaign Prussia had remained on the sidelines, unsure where its advantage lay. With Austria defeated, the Prussians went to war with France in 1806. Prussia's army, once the envy of Europe, was no longer a match for the French. Prussia had Russia as an ally, but the Russian armies were far away when the emperor attacked in October. The Grande Armee's capacity to fight independently was shown at the simultaneous battles of Jena and Auerstedt. With both sides unsure of their enemy's dispositions, Napoleon sent most of his army - almost 100,000 men - to fight a small Prussian force at Jena, while Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout's corps of 26,000 confronted the 64,000-strong principal Prussian army at Auerstadt, and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's soldiers hovered unused between the two. Despite his numerical inferiority, Davout drove the Prussian army from the field. Pursued by French cavalry, they dissolved in a general rout and Napoleon occupied Berlin.

The cost of war
The Russians and winter weather were Napoleon's enemies. Dispersal enabled his army to survive the winter in Poland, but at Eylau, in February 1807, the men were required to focus for a battle with Russia and Prussia. This was a savage clash in a snowstorm with both sides calling up reinforcements. The day was won by a French cavalry charge, 10,000-strong, which crushed the Russian infantry and overran their cannon. With the French suffering some 25,000 casualties, Eylau was far from a decisive victory. However, after their defeat at Friedland in the summer, the Russians were forced to make make peace at Tilsit. Two years of battle had given him mastery of Europe.

In 1809 the Austrians tried to throw off this domination by declaring war on the French again. With Prussia failing to assist and Russia hostile, Austria had little hope. But at Aspern-Essling in May, Archduke Charles inflicted a rare reverse upon Napoleon, catching his army halfway through a river crossing and forcing him to abandon the bridgehead. At Wagram in July, Napoleon got revenge but not without heavy losses. Austria sought an armistice; for Napoleon, the price paid for European control was rising.

Napoleon's Downfall
By the summer of 1812, Napoleon had assembled an army of around 600,000 troops for an invasion of Russia. About a half of them were from France, although even these included numerous men from recently annexed regions tha twere not ethnically French. The rest were troops exacted from client states such as the German Confederation of the Rhine, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Polish Duchy of Warsaw. France's reluctant allies, Prussia and Austria, also provided contingents that advanced on the flanks of Napoleon's army. As well as the men, there were some 200,000 horses. Napolon knew that such a host would find it impossible to survive off the land in Russia and so made complex supply arrangements, but these were adequate only for a short campaign. He envisaged crossing the border, bringing the Russians to battle, defeating them, and imposing a humiliating peace.

The invasion was launched in June, but nothing went to plan. The cautious Russian generals withdrew ahead of Napoleon, drawing him deeper into Russia. By the time the first battle was fought, at Smolensk in August, the French supply line had broken down and thousands of soldiers were dropping out through hunger, fatigue, and disease. The battle was indecisive, although the Russian army again fell back, ceding Smolensk.

A costly victory
Napoleon continued his advance towards Moscow, reasoning correctly that the Russians would feel bound to defend the city. The veteran general, Mikhail Kutuzov, newly appointed to command the country's forces, took a stand at the village of Borodino. What came next on 7 September was mass slaughter - some 70,000 from both sides were killed or wounded in a single day - as France overcame the Russian defensive position by frontal assault. Napoleon had his victory, but it did not produce the result he expected. The Russian general kept his army in being, and even when the French occupied Moscow, Czar Alexander refused to make peace. Napoleon could not provide for his army in Moscow, especially after part of the city burned down. Shadowed by the Russian army, the French began a withdrawal in mid-October. The retreat from Moscow was an epic of suffering. Driven by hunger to eat their remaining horses, harassed by Cossack skirmishers, frozen once the winter snows set in, the surviving French troops became ragged, skeletal figures. Despite this, they still managed to flee Russian encirclement with a crossing of the Berezina River in late November, but only a few thousand of Napoleon's men who had made it as far as Moscow completed the return journey. Yet this disaster did not crush Napoleon. In 1813 he built a new army of fresh French conscripts, Poles, and Germans, ready to battle as Prussia, Austria, and Sweden allied with Russia and Britain.

A ruler on the wane
At first Napoleon looked set to defeat his enemies again despite the odds, but in October's three-day Battle of Leipzig, the wight of the forces against him proved set. Outnumbered almost two to one, his army withdrew with heavy losses. In December, the anti-French coalition agreed to pursue the total defeat of Napoleon and invaded France, already penetrated by the British from Spain during the Peninsular War. Napoleon once more rebuilt his army, calling up Frenchmen from the age of 16 to 60, but there was scant enthusiasm for the draft and he could field little more than 100,000. He fought a brilliant series of defensive battles against the invading armies but, at the end of March 1814, Paris was occupied by the Allies. The following month Napoleon abdicated. The victors allowed him honorable exile as ruler of the small Mediterranean island of Elba.

However, the reinstatement of the Bourbon monarchy in France did not go smoothly, and Napoleon returned to French soil in March 1815 to begin what is now known as his "Hundred Days". Gathering an army of young and old, Napoleon seized the offensive, hoping to repulse his enemies before they united. In June he invaded Belgium, attacking the armies of the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian general, Gebhard von Blucher. After repulsing them separately on 16 June at Quatre Bras and Ligny, he was beaten by the two together at Waterloo two days later.